Authors

• Đeiti Prvulović — Croatia

Keywords

retirement age, cognitive impairment, interventional cardiology

DOI

Full Text

There is no mandated retirement age for physicians in the United States, and physicians 65 and older currently represent 23 percent of physicians in the United States ( 1 ). It is estimated that 5-10% of people age 65 and older have dementia. ( 2 ) Older physicians have deep knowledge, well-honed interpersonal skills, better judgement than young ones and more balanced perspective. To perform demanding and challenging job of interventional cardiologist, physician must have the physical and mental ability. Health, physical ability, and cognition decline with age, but with significant variability in the cognitive aging process across older adults. ( 2 ) Is there an age limit for interventional cardiologist? Is it everything in the age? If there is physical or cognitive decline, who is going to make an assessment and how to measure it? Who is responsible to act in this situation? What are impediments to stop catheterization laboratory activity? In Croatia there is a lack of experienced interventional cardiologist. Mandatory retirement age is 65. „For many of us, cardiology is not only a career but a lifetime endeavor“. ( 3 ) We must think about opportunities of advantages of older colleagues and their possible contribution to the health care environment as potent knowledge and experience resources, in practical work in catheterization laboratory, in advocacy and in education.